


ooh laura (you're more than a superstar)

by callunavulgari



Series: Crossover Drabble Meme Collection [11]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Laura Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 02:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1534892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Someone out there killed my brother,” she warns him. “This isn’t going to be like some kind of movie. It’s going to be dangerous and I’m sorry, but I can’t even promise you that you’ll be safe.” His eyes are shrewd, knowing. It’s strange, seeing that look on another person. “But you are going to promise to try your damndest to protect me, aren’t you?” </p><p>A what-if AU where Derek died in Laura's place during the pilot episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ooh laura (you're more than a superstar)

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for this was first time, so originally, it was going to be very heavy and full of lots of guilty, hot sex. However, once I started writing it, I felt like adding the sexual aspect would take away from the rest of it. So it's been intentionally kept vague. If you think they're platonic BFFs for life, go right ahead. If you want to think that a month down the line she jumps his bones, it's up to you. But yeah. This was incredibly fun to write, but it also hasn't been beta'd, so let me know if you notice anything.

She’s been so stupid — so fucking stupid. Sending Derek in after some dead deer back in Beacon Hills was a mistake.  
  
 _It’s stupid for you to go_ , he’d told her, his clothes still stained with grease from the shop. _Why send the alpha when you’ve got a perfectly capable beta to do your dirty work for you?_  
  
He’d teased her about it the entire week that it had taken to convince her. He’d teased her about it during that last phone call he’d made, when he called to tell her he was thirty minutes out. And now—  
  
Now her brother is dead, cleaved in half like he’s just another animal. She aches and aches, crooning and sobbing as she brushes the hair off of his forehead, rubbing their cheeks together like she can make the smell of decay go away if she makes him smell like her enough. She feels broken in a way she hasn’t since she first became alpha and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.  
  
She’s alone now, impossibly alone, an alpha without a pack.  
  
She howls her fury to the moon, to the sky and the stars, and lowers her head over her brother’s body — loses herself to the instinct.  
  
.  
  
When she comes back to herself, the smell of teenage boy is all over her. She spares a minute to wonder if in her half-crazed state she went out and fucked some minor in the hopes that she’d get pregnant. Expand the pack, breed, the need for more Hales crawling just under her skin.  
  
But no, she doesn’t smell like spunk or hormones. Worse — she smells like fear.  
  
Like blood.  
  
.  
  
It isn’t hard to find the boy. Once the bite takes, she can feel him, same as she used to be able to feel Derek — a constant, thrumming tether — pack, pack, pack.  
  
He’s in _high school_ and that right there is horrifying enough. She lets her senses stretch, reclining against the hood of her camaro in the school parking lot, shutting her eyes as she soaks in the sun.  
  
He’s in chemistry, talking with another boy about what happened last night — how he’d _found the body, Scott_. Her entire chest feels like a block of ice that won’t thaw, the pain of grief and loss coupled with the shame of making not one, but two horrible decisions in the last week.  
  
She stays there for hours, listening to the boy — Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff’s son, and doesn’t that just make things a hundred times worse — go about his day. She learns his name and the way he likes his coffee; familiarizes herself with the boundless energy surging beneath his skin and the sound of his feet on cheap flooring. She listens and waits, the sun burning her skin and healing before it can even go red.  
  
Everything feels wrong, being here without Derek, waiting for this kid to emerge from the school so she can spring a huge, life-changing secret on him. She thinks that it’s highly possible that she’ll always ache for Derek, that she’ll spend the rest of her life mourning the little brother that had escaped the fire only to die a horrible, lonely death later.  
  
Half an hour before school is due to let out, she finds the kid’s jeep in the parking lot, and reclines against that instead.  
  
She waits.  
  
.  
  
“Woah,” the kid says, when he catches sight of her. His scent briefly goes sickly sweet with arousal before he wrestles it down. It makes her want to smile, so she does. It’s good that he’s already got good control.  
  
“Not that it isn’t awesome having a hot girl all over my car, I’m pretty sure I’ve had several dreams about the matter, very in-depth, you know, but uh, who are you?”  
  
She slants her eyes open, squinting against the glare of the sun.  
  
He is young, lean and gangly with hands and feet that he hasn’t quite grown into. It reminds her painfully of Derek when he was fifteen, before he’d grown into his bulk. The kid’s got these big doe brown eyes and baby cheeks that makes him seem even younger than he really is. He’s miles and miles of pale skin, but he’s looking at her with narrow, suspicious eyes.  
  
Slowly, she slides off of his hood, twisting when she gracefully hits the ground.  
  
“Laura,” she tells him, smiling brightly, flashing every single one of her teeth.  
  
His response is both instantaneous and subtle enough that she doesn’t even think he notices the way he slinks back half a step in submission. He blinks.  
  
“We need to have a little chat,” she shrugs, closing the distance between them and slinging her arm around the back of his neck. There are people watching — curious high school kids who are already buzzing with gossip. She needs to get herself away from here before someone thinks to tell the sheriff that there’s a strange woman making off with his son. “So the real question is: my car or yours?”  
  
.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she tells him, after she’s finished. The kid’s room is small, dirty laundry stashed in forgotten places and smelling overwhelming of hormones and teenage boy. She paces the perimeter of his room the best she can, tracing her fingers over the books on his shelf and the various posters littering the walls.  
  
He’s sitting on his bed, watching her calmly. It had her hackles up, because he’s been that way the whole time, scent a steady stream of calm.  
  
“So, I’m a werewolf now,” he finally says, carefully, like she’s going to laugh at him. God, what if he thinks that she’s pranking him? Some strange woman shows up, claiming that he’s a werewolf? What kid would believe that? She nods, chewing on her lower lip as she paces.  
  
When she looks back at him, he shrugs. “I figured it out this morning.”  
  
Apparently this kid believes that. She doesn’t know whether to be annoyed at his naivety or proud.  
  
“And the body in the woods…” he starts, trailing off, his scent going sour with uncertainty.  
  
“My brother,” she says sharply. “I sent him here to check in on something and when I found him I—”  
  
“You lost your mind a little bit,” he finishes, nodding as if it’s perfectly normal to lose control and bite somebody. Miserably, she returns the nod.  
  
“So, what now?” he asks. “We crank some eighties power ballads and have a training montage?”  
  
Laura scowls at him, but he just shrugs, flashing a huge grin in her direction. “Well, you are gonna train me, right? How to ‘control the wolf’?”  
  
She can practically hear the quotations in his voice, jesus. Reluctantly, she nods.  
  
“Someone out there killed my brother,” she warns him. “This isn’t going to be like some kind of movie. It’s going to be dangerous and I’m sorry, but I can’t even promise you that you’ll be safe.”  
  
His eyes are shrewd, knowing. It’s strange, seeing that look on another person. “But you are going to promise to try your damndest to protect me, aren’t you?”  
  
Of course she is. She could never just leave him to this, after what she’s done to him. He’s pack. She tells him as much.  
  
“Well,” he says slowly, smiling softly at her. This smile is new — shy and trusting, nothing like the huge grins he’s been giving her thus far. “That’s what matters then. We’re in this together.”  
  
.  
  
She’s not surprised that when they meet up in the preserve the next day, he’s got a tag along.  
  
He’s not stupid, she’ll give him that, because the minute he sees her expression he’s all flailing limbs and stubborn eyes. “No, no, no!” he’s saying, closing the distance between them. “You’ve already got me lying to my dad, there is no way that I’m keeping this from Scott, my wolfy lady friend.”  
  
She snorts at him, then sighs, plastering a polite smile across her face as she turns to the kid next to Stiles and offers her hand. “Laura Hale,” she tells him. “Pleasure.”  
  
“Scott McCall,” he replies, shaking her hand. His scent is a mixture of distrust, uncertainty, and suspicion, but he gives her a goofy smile anyway. She’ll take what she can get.  
  
“So Scott, what do you know about werewolves?”  
  
.  
  
They spend the next week training and strategizing in equal measures. Stiles has decent control, for his age, despite the fact that his brain is all over the place all the time. He’s also clever and if Scott’s anything to go by, loyal to a fault.  
  
He was a good choice, even if the circumstances were terrible.  
  
She watches him take off through the treeline, fully shifted and fast, almost as fast as she is. With more practice, he could be absolutely deadly, all grace, poise, and precision. She likes him too — he’s funny and when Kate Argent shows up in town, doesn’t hesitate to do what she asks of him.  
  
She’s already spoken to Chris and Victoria, even if it was agonizing to shove all her instinct down and go to him. Neither of them were happy to learn that there’s a rogue werewolf somewhere in town, especially one powerful enough to kill a born beta.  
  
Kate Argent is a different matter entirely, because the first thing she does is shoot Laura.  
  
It could have gone worse. It could also probably have gone better, but when she shows up after school, bleeding and delirious, Stiles is at her side in an instant.  
  
“Why aren’t you healing?” he hisses as he hustles her into the passenger seat, his hands warm, almost feverishly so. “You’re supposed to be an alpha! Alpha’s don’t die from—” he fumbles at her side, until he can see the wound. “—a bullet!”  
  
“Wolfsbane bullet,” she tells him through gritted teeth as he shifts the car into gear. “Even alphas can die if the poison reaches their heart.”  
  
Stiles is shaking, jerking his eyes away from the road every few seconds, like she might die while he’s not looking. “What do I do?” he finally asks, after he’s exhausted what seems to be every curse known to man.  
  
She hesitates. “Take me to the Argents.”  
  
He shoots her an incredulous look, but does as she says.  
  
Kate isn’t there when they arrive, but Chris takes one look at her and curses, pulling her and Stiles inside before the neighbors notice.  
  
It could definitely have gone worse. At least she doesn’t lose her arm.  
  
.  
  
People start dying. Her uncle goes missing and then tries to kill her.  
  
“Well, I guess we know who killed your brother,” Stiles tells her that night. He’s stroking her hair, huddled around her in his bed like he could protect her if Peter came back to finish the job. She hadn’t expected it, so Peter had gotten the drop on her. It was a stupid mistake, one that might have actually killed her if not for Stiles. Now she’s got a gaping wound in her chest, smearing blood all over Stiles’ sheets.  
  
He’s warm, pressed all along her side, face turned into her hair. She can feel him breathing against her temple. It isn’t unwelcome, but it is incredibly strange.  
  
“I am going to get arrested,” she tells him, her tongue sloppy and slurred.  
  
“Probably.” He snorts. “Don’t worry, I’ll hear it when my dad gets home.”  
  
She drifts, for awhile, letting the sound of his heartbeat calm her mind. It was never this hard, before, back when it was her and Derek. She works well with Stiles, but it isn’t enough. Maybe her and Derek could have done this together, but even if Peter is a wounded, half-crazy beta, he’s always been entirely too clever. He was always the smart one — mom’s right hand.  
  
“I think you should bite Scott,” Stiles tells her, his voice soft and breathy, gentle.  
  
“He’d be a terrible wolf,” she mutters, shifting so that she can tuck her nose under his chin.  
  
“At first, maybe,” Stiles says, shrugging. “We’d have to ask him, but I think that he’d be good, eventually. He’s got the heart for it, and we need that. You’re the strength, I’m the brain… Laura, we need a heart.”  
  
She sighs, breath gusting over Stiles’ neck. It makes him shiver, but only fifty percent of that reaction is chill. “We can ask him tomorrow,” she concedes, pulling him closer. “But right now, I need to sleep.”  
  
.  
  
She wasn’t blind to the fact that Scott was dating Argent’s daughter, but it makes things more complicated. He doesn’t want to take the bite unless Chris okays it.  
  
It makes for a very awkward dinner.  
  
“You want to turn a kid?”  
  
She smirks, shrugging when she says, tongue in cheek, “Why not? I’ve already turned one.”  
  
Both Argent’s narrow their eyes. She laughs, thinking that she’s clearly been spending entirely too much time with Stiles. “That was different,” Chris tells her. “We understood your circumstances — you didn’t hurt the boy and you owned up to it. You came to us. Apologized. You’re taking care of him. This is—”  
  
“This is the premeditated turning of a child,” Victoria finishes, her eyes like chips of ice.  
  
Laura sighs, playing idly with the green beans on her plate. “My pack consists of myself and one teenage beta. He’s been doing well, but it’s not enough. We need protection and there’s protection in numbers. Peter is clever and _dangerous_ , even to me.”  
  
“We’ve offered you our assistance.”  
  
She smiles at them, wanly. “And I’ve taken it, graciously. But I know my uncle. Even with your help, it’s going to be difficult.”  
  
She doesn’t say anything about Kate — about how the woman has been stalking her around town, always just out of sight. She doesn’t say a damn thing, because Kate is a different problem, one that she hopefully won’t have to handle until after Peter’s been taken care of.  
  
“He’s dating our daughter,” Chris barks.  
  
She inclines her head, fighting down the instinct to flash her eyes. “He is. And you have my word that I will not let him near her until I believe he has control. He’s agreed to the terms. Do you?”  
  
“Will you tell his mother?” Victoria asks, curiously.  
  
She bites her lip, because that’s what she’s been worrying about. The sheriff doesn’t know and the Argent’s have agreed with her that it’s best she and Stiles not tell him until after Peter has been taken care of, but this is different. Scott won’t be bitten by mistake, she’ll be doing it conscious and wholly herself. And he is only sixteen.  
  
“I’m considering it,” she says, because it’s the truth. “So I have your approval?”  
  
.  
  
Scott is a terrible beta in those first few days. His control is poor and he spends a huge portion of his time pining after Allison. Twice she has to go after him, intercepting him before he can reach the Argent’s.  
  
“I blame you,” she says, struggling to keep a snarling, out of control werewolf pinned. She’ll use her alpha voice if she has to, but she’d rather Scott regained control on his own. Stiles, from where he’s watching from the treeline, holds up his hands, an innocent expression on his face.  
  
“Hey, I admitted he’d suck at first,” Stiles protests.  
  
The fight is slowly going out of Scott. He’s slumping in her arms as he struggles to get his heartbeat under control. When he does finally get a handle on himself, Stiles lets out a great whoop and whisks Scott out of her arms and twirls his friend around the clearing, until they’re both laughing.  
  
“That’s what I’m talking about, buddy!” Stiles is shouting, a huge, happy grin on his face. When he turns the look on her, she’s helpless to do anything but smile back.  
  
.  
  
Stiles has talked about Lydia enough that when Laura finally meets her, it’s a bit underwhelming. Even so, she can tell that Stiles has good taste. The girl is clearly intelligent, even if she hides it under a vapid facade.  
  
“Hey,” she purrs, suddenly, as if she’s just noticed Laura, pulling away from the dresses that her and Allison are examining and crossing the aisle. “You’re that girl that Stilinski was with in the parking lot.”  
  
Laura eyes her warily as Allison joins them, giving Laura an apologetic look over Lydia’s shoulder. Allison might not know about her family or werewolves yet, but one day, she’s going to be a damn good leader.  
  
Because there’s no getting out of this, Laura offers her a small smile. “I used to babysit him,” she lies, shrugging like it’s no big deal. “I came back from college and figured I’d stop by and say hi.”  
  
Lydia quirks an eyebrow at her. “I’ll bet that was fun.”  
  
This time, the grin isn’t fake. She can only imagine how much of a hassle it would have been to babysit a younger, crazier Stiles. She feels for the sheriff, she really does. “So much fun. You have no idea,” she drawls, crossing her arms and leaning back against a rack of suits.  
  
Stiles and Scott are both around here somewhere. She’d brought them here to help them pick out suits for the formal, but she’d lost them back in the electronics section. She knows they’ll join her eventually, but she can only hope that it’ll be after the two girls wander off. A quick check reveals that they are still fucking around, arguing about some new video game.  
  
Lydia’s idea of small talk is eerily similar to being interrogated. She coaxes Laura over to the ladies side of the formal wear, asking for her opinion on two almost identical dresses and springing loaded questions on her in between discussing strappy sandals and stilettos. Where did she go to school? How long has she known the Stilinskis? Why did she come back?  
  
For someone who apparently didn’t know Stiles existed until Scott started dating Allison, she seems to know a lot about him.  
  
When she hears Scott and Stiles make it up the escalator, she makes her excuses, tells Lydia to go with the second dress and goes to herd two boys away from the primary reason they came to the damn store.  
  
It’s pretty easy, even if Stiles eyes her strangely afterward, nostrils flaring.  
  
.  
  
“You could always take me,” she laughs later that week, tossing a hacky-sack between her hands as Stiles fucks around in his closet.  
  
It’s the tenth time today that he’s bitched about going to the dance by himself and while it’s amusing, she kind of wants to take his self esteem by the throat and beat it around the head.  
  
“Nuh uh!” he cries, voice slightly muffled. She slides partially off the bed, blood rushing to her head as she peers into the closet, mostly upside down. The suit she picked out looks good on him — definitely better than what he’d planned on buying. “We already went around the gossip mill once, alpha my alpha. That was more than enough. And no offense, but if the school starts thinking that I’m in a relationship with a hot older woman, I’d kind of like it to, y’know, not be a lie.”  
  
He finally comes out, takes one look at her hanging upside down off his bed, and rolls his eyes. “You’re ridiculous,” he tells her.  
  
“Your face is ridiculous,” she responds, sticking her tongue out.  
  
.  
  
She was planning on hanging around near the gym like a total creeper and monitoring them in case Scott lost control. What actually happens is Kate Argent kidnapping her.  
  
It’s embarrassing.  
  
“Hello, big sister,” she drawls, a sick smirk on her lips. “I was hoping that your brother was back in town — very sorry to hear about his loss — he was such a nice plaything. And such stamina! ”  
  
Kate laughs when Laura snarls at her, flicking a switch that sends electricity jolting down her spine. “But of course, you knew that, didn’t you? Word on the street says you’re fucking the Stilinski kid. Tell me, what felt worse — turning him into a monster or sinking back onto his cock?”  
  
“Fuck you, Kate,” she growls, eyes flashing red.  
  
“Mmm, no thanks,” Kate purrs. “Doing your brother was fun, but it was kind of a one time thing, you know? Needed to get some information so I could burn your family alive.”  
  
She grins brightly, even as Laura’s entire vision goes _redredred_.  
  
Distantly, over the sound of her own roars, she hears Kate chide, “Bad puppy.”  
  
Then there’s nothing but pain and darkness.  
  
.  
  
When she comes to, Stiles is crouched over her, eyes glowing fierce and yellow in the darkness. She gives him a sloppy grin, gasping as her muscles spasm.  
  
“Hey there,” she slurs, nuzzling her face against his.  
  
He makes a low, gutted sound, and presses into her touch.  
  
It should come as a surprise that it takes her a minute to wonder how he got here. She knows that she hasn’t taught him enough about pack bonds for him to follow them here, so how…  
  
“Shouldn’t you be at your dance?” she asks, coughing once and then grimacing as she spits blood onto the floor. The laugh that comes out of him sounds strangled.  
  
“Yeah, funny thing. My alpha got herself kidnapped. That takes priority.”  
  
She smiles again, hiding it in the shadows of his throat. He pulls away carefully, petting her hair when she whines at the loss. She squints up at him and yeah, that’s a serious look on his face.  
  
“Also, your crazy uncle crashed the party. Took a chunk out of Lydia and kidnapped me off the lacrosse field — don’t worry, I lost him like a couple miles back, but I need to get you out of here before he sees you all trussed up and takes the opportunity to tear out your throat.”  
  
He says it so calmly. His heartbeat is even steady. She’d known that he was cool under pressure, but damn. Tiredly, she nods at the car battery that Kate had been playing with. Stiles takes the hint and immediately heads over to start dismantling it.  
  
She gasps when the constant, low-grade thrumming of electricity stops running through her, biting down on her lip so hard that she tastes blood. “Lydia — is she?”  
  
“She’s fine,” he says, then snorts in disgust. “Well, no, she’s not fine. Last I heard Jackson was yelling for an ambulance, but she’s not dead.”  
  
“Scott?”  
  
“With Allison. He didn’t even notice Peter — we really need to work on his control some more.”  
  
She whimpers again when he gets her out of the chains and collapses into his arms gratefully. He holds her for another minute, lets her gather her strength, and helps her back onto her feet.  
  
“How much time do we have?” she asks him, leaning on him a bit more than she should.  
  
“No hunters nearby — guess whoever got you was really confident about keeping you chained up down here — but I’d say Peter’s maybe five minutes away and that’s if he actually took the bait and followed the wrong scent trail.”  
  
Fuck. She is in no way prepared for this fight. Not at all.  
  
“Get me out,” she gasps. “Fuck, Stiles, get me out of here.”  
  
.  
  
They’re ambushed outside her old home, but not by Peter. Hunters. God, she hates hunters.  
  
“Stiles, run,” she whispers, grunting in pain when she catches an arrow with her stomach. He turns to her, furious, eyes glinting beta gold and defiant.  
  
“I’m not leaving you,” he hisses, tugging her behind a tree and ripping the arrow out. It won’t do much, not with Kate and god, Chris — fuck, she was a fool for trusting him — gunning for them. In this moment, she aches for her mother. Laura’s a terrible alpha, she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She got her brother killed and pulled two kids into the mix.  
  
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” she hears Kate laughing.  
  
“She broke the code, Chris!” Laura yells, furious and desperate. She’s coming apart at the seams. “Your sister killed my entire family and laughed about it! There were kids in there, Chris! Human kids! And you’re really going to stand by her?”  
  
She laughs, harsh and derisive, and can feel the point where it tips over into hysterics, because Stiles reaches down and squeezes her hand.  
  
“That is exactly what he’s going to do, my lovely niece,” a voice drawls from the shadows and she starts, eyes widening. This isn’t happening.  
  
“He’s an Argent,” Peter growls, stepping out from behind the bulk of a large tree. “A hunter. That’s what they do.”  
  
Peter laughs at Stiles when her beta steps in front of her, hand outstretched, a low growl coming from his throat. “Oh Laura. Haven’t we been down this path before? Unless of course you’ve forgotten what happened the last time you sent one of your betas after me.”  
  
Her throat closes up, her chest turned to ice. Peter, she remembers, uses his words like weapons, like they’re crossbows and wolfsbane. He wants her to turn into a mewling child — wants to break her apart so he can kill her easily. Instead, she thinks of Derek, his eyes blank and staring, about how the last thing he saw was probably his favorite uncle. He’d probably felt relief to see Peter out of the coma. He might have even been happy, before Peter turned around and ripped his throat out. This time, Peter’s words give her strength, turns her spine to steel.  
  
The hunters are quiet. It’s unlike them.  
  
“Put your sister down so I don’t have to Chris,” she yells over her shoulder, gently guiding Stiles out of the way. “You take care of yours and I’ll take care of mine.”  
  
She doesn’t have time to check if he’s doing it or even if he’s heard her.  
  
She narrows her eyes and lunges.  
  
.  
  
So simple.  
  
A bullet to the head.  
  
Claws to the throat.  
  
She stares at Peter’s corpse after and wonders if he felt any remorse for killing Derek. It doesn’t matter.  
  
She leaves him to rot.  
  
.  
  
Time passes and her pack grows. First comes Allison. Then Stiles’ father. Later, comes Lydia. In the summer, she turns the gravedigger’s son and instead of slitting the boy’s father’s throat for what he's been doing to his child, she passes a tip to the sheriff. She finds Erica through Stiles and Boyd through Scott. Melissa McCall comes with her son, once she finds out. Cora comes to her on a sunny morning and they spend hours sobbing together, their arms wrapped around each other.  
  
Three years pass and Stiles turns to her on a Thursday night, a musty old book in his lap, and tells her, “I think I found a way to bring back your brother.”  
  
Laura smiles.  
  



End file.
